“No,” Mercedes answered. “I’m from the Future.”
“Refugee from Boeotia,” the girl concluded. “I thought you looked corn-fed. Aspasia’s got a heart as big as a house. She’ll help you out. By the way, my names Phye.” The girl searched the crowds pouring from the theatre. She finally spotted a tall, regal-looking woman dressed in what looked to be a robe of lavender chiffon.
“Aspasia!” Phye shouted. “Here’s someone who wants to see you!” She presented Mercedes. “She’s a refugee. I imagine she wants to be introduced around a little. Either that or to locate in a good House.”
Aspasia smiled affectionately at the girl and turned to Mercedes. “My dear, you’re too fat to go around without body bands. And where did you get that impossible costume? It doesn’t show a thing!” Mercedes was, for a moment, speechless. Aspasia did not look nearly so regal on close inspection. She was far on the worst side of fifty. Powder and rouge caked her face and mascara was beginning to edge down her cheeks. Her hair was frankly a screaming yellow and tortured into an impossible intricacy of curls that bounced gleefully as she walked.
“You’re . . . Aspasia?” Mercedes asked haltingly.
“Sure, honey. You come on home with me for a day and then we’ll see if we can place you.”
It began to dawn on Mercedes that perhaps she was not misunderstanding Aspasia. How she wished all this had been Lost in Translation! Still, there would be advantages to being received in Aspasia’s house. They walked in silence for a moment, Aspasia waving to her friends along the way. Finally Mercedes turned to her.
“Would it be possible, do you think, for me to meet your husband, the noble Pericles?” Mercedes’ heart thudded at the mere thought. She missed her sal volatile badly.
Aspasia looked shocked and spoke in a hissing whisper. “Sh, honey. I’m legally married now. My husband is terribly jealous of my past. Pericles is dead twelve years this Dionysia. Where have you been?”
Mercedes berated herself for not having read up on history before she came. It would have been so easy to get a few more facts. But Kim had been so masterful and had rushed her into the machine so fast . . .
“If I told you, Aspasia, you might not believe me.”
“Never mind, dear,” Aspasia said comfortingly, “you’ll look like an Athenian hetaira by the time I’ve finished with you.”
Mercedes was, really, in a state of shock. She kept trying to tell Aspasia, “Really, you know, I’m not that kind of girl.”
And Aspasia would answer, “Either you’re the daughter of an Athenian citizen or you’re not. If you’re not, you’re a working girl and what other sort of work is there? I mean for a woman with any self-respect at all?”
While Aspasia was painting her face with a practiced hand, Mercedes, almost overcome by the smells of various perfumes, put the question that had been uppermost in her mind for some time. “Do you still hold your brilliant salons
Aspasia shook her head in puzzlement. “I used to run a House,” she said, “when I first came here from Miletus. But after I met Pericles—well, I gave up my career.”
“Then you really were his Intellectual and Spiritual Companion?”
Aspasia put down the tweezers with which she had been plucking Mercedes’ eyebrows. She sat in thought for a moment, and a hint of tears dampened her eyes.
“We used to recline around the tables in the evening, talking the night away and settling the problems of die world. We thought we owned it. For a while, I guess we did. And now look at it!” She sighed, and picked up the tweezers. “‘Don’t you think the Sicilian Expedition is what we need to put new life into us?”
“Why, I don’t know,” Mercedes answered. It was her turn to be puzzled. “I don’t know anything about war and politics.”
“Don’t know!” Aspasia gasped. “What do you expect to talk to men about? You don’t know anything about the art of politics, the art of war, or even the art of love! What do you know?”
“Well,” Mercedes began. She was about to say she was Interested in Greek Culture, but it occurred to her that, considering the ignorance she had displayed thus far, Aspasia might receive this rather rudely.
Aspasia stood up. “Now you’re all painted and dressed and you look very nice if I do say so myself. I don’t like to be unkind, dear, but I think you’d better begin your education from the very basic things. I’ll have a slave take you to the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos. Remember, it’s a sacrilege to refuse yourself to anyone, be he ever so old or ugly. You can’t accept money, of course, but it’s very good practice.” Mercedes had no intention of hanging around the temple of Aphrodite. However, it was clear that she could expect no more from Aspasia, who had shown her a real, if misguided, kindness. She therefore followed the slave out into the thronged and evil-smelling streets.
As they made their way through the marketplace, she experienced an entirely new and unexpected pleasure. Men, she noted, were staring at her with looks she could only describe as “admiring.” She found herself clutching unconsciously at the neck of her vermilion peplum, which dipped dangerously low. She gasped with surprise and (admit it) some delight when a handsome man with an expensive-looking bracelet on his arm fell into step beside her and began murmuring exaggerated compliments. Life began to take on an entirely new meaning.
They reached the temple of Aphrodite and stood in the shade of a pleasant little grove of trees. The slave left and the young man stood with arms folded, watching her with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. Mercedes took one look at the drunk sailors and clumsy, embarrassed-looking farmers standing around. She shuddered and turned to her new admirer, who now looked to her like a heaven-sent protector.
“What’s the matter, kitten?” he asked. He had a languid, selfpossessed air that reminded Mercedes, with a (no other way to describe it) slight thrill of Kim. “Got cold feet? Can’t say I blame you.”
Tm cold all over. Oh, I do wish I had my—” There was no Greek word for it. “Salts,” had entirely the wrong connotation. . . . “I simply don’t know what to do,” she went on, thinking that with her eyebrows plucked she must look rather appealingly helpless.
“I do,” he said with a disarming smile. “You just come along with me and let your sacred obligations go for a while. It happens, by pure luck, that I’m having a little party tonight and were short one flute girl.” He took her elbow and guided her along a narrow, winding street.
“I don’t play the flute.”
“Darling, you’re marvelous!”
“But I really don’t. Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Never mind. The flute-playing part always bores me anyhow. Do you want to come home with me now or have my slave come for you tonight?”
Tears trembled on Mercedes’ lashes. “I don’t know where I’d go. I have no home here and I can hardly go home with a complete stranger.”
The young man laughed and hugged her briefly. “Stranger! You really don’t know who I am? I’m Callias!”
“Camas?”
“Son of Hipponicus. Of course everybody and his brother in Athens is named Camas. It’s annoying. But I’m Camas rich as Croesus, not Camas the charcoal seller. Zeus, I thought every woman in Athens knew me. My person may pall but my money never fails to fascinate . . .
Mercedes spent the afternoon alone in a room in the women’s quarters. It was well furnished with mirrors, cosmetics and unguents, and she spent her time repainting her face. She had drifted far, she realized, from her neoVictorian principles. But somehow, now, especially in view of her new face in the mirror, the Bifurcate Review seemed very far away.
Evening was well under way when the flute girls arrived, swirling in their bright dresses and chattering like a swarm of little tropical birds. Mercedes recognized Phye, her friend from the theatre, and reintroduced herself.
“Darling, Aspasia’s done wonders with you. Only do try not to talk through your nose.” Phye introduced her around and Mercedes winced at some of the nicknames which
were much too obvious to be Lost in Translation.
“You must be for Callias,” a bland-faced little brunette said. She patted Mercedes confidentially. “I had him last. If he’s not carrying a purse get a nice bit of jewelry. He’s stingy when he’s sober.”
Mercedes found this land of talk distinctly unpleasant. It was becoming too obvious that Callias’ Intentions were not Honorable. She began to wonder wildly when Kim and Jack would translate her back to her own time. In the excitement of being practically pushed into the little telephone booth that was the time machine, she had forgotten to ask.
They were soon ushered into the banquet room. The men were lying on couches by little tables arranged in a large circle. The other girls stood inside the circle, holding their flutes and ready to perform. Mercedes looked helplessly at Callias. He had a large cup in his hand and his eyes looked unnaturally bright. He had clearly been Drinking.
He sprang up and lifted Mercedes onto one of the tables. “Gentlemen,” he announced, “I want you to meet the find of the season. She actually doesn’t play the flute. Can you think of anything more refreshing?”
The other girls eyed Mercedes jealously. Why hadn’t they thought of an approach like that?
Mercedes drank her first cup of wine out of politeness. . . . The second she tried only to see if it would taste better than the first. . . . The third, fourth, and succeeding ones she drank for the sheer pleasure of it all.
A time came when she was aware that Callias was looking deep into her eyes and saying, “You know, you’re a terribly attractive woman.”
There was, Mercedes found, a warming pleasure in seeing Callias with the torch light flickering over his well-oiled muscles. It was even more warming to touch him. Never, in all her reading, had she come across such a sensation.
She reached up and pulled his short, curly beard. “Hell with the Bifurcate Review,” she hiccoughed. “Kiss me again that funny way . . .”
Mercedes woke to a feeling of cramped discomfort. She reluctantly forced her eyes open and found herself curled grotesquely in the little booth of the time machine. Her head ached abominably, and there was an unfamiliar furry taste in her mouth. Being translated back to her own time, she reflected, apparently had side effects which the trip to the past had not.
She groped to her feet and opened the door.
Her father and Kim stared openmouthed. Jack finally said, “We’ve been waiting three hours for you to come out. The door has to be opened from the inside.”
Kim was still gazing at her in amazement and (no doubt about it) admiration. He whistled softly.
Her father paused, looked her over again, and took her in his arms. “My little girl seems to have grown up,” he said, patting her head as though she had unexpectedly won a blue ribbon in a horse show. “But, dear, what happened!”
“I don’t quite know,” Mercedes answered truthfully. “That is, I’m not sure.”
On the other hand, she thought a touch complacently, it had not been a neo-Victorian evening—what else, after all, could have happened?
“I think we may assume,” Mercedes went on with some archness, and plainly not speaking of her adenoids, “that something was Lost in Translation.”
CAR POOL
Certainly alien children ought to be fed . . . but to human kids?
“HAPPY birthday to you,” Xl we all sang, except Gail, of course, who was still screaming, though not as loud.
“Well, now,” I said jovially, glancing nervously about at the other air traffic, “what else can we all sing?” The singing seemed to be working nicely. They had stopped swatting each other with their lunch boxes and my experienced ear told me Gail was by this time forcing herself to scream. This should be the prelude to giving up and enjoying herself.
“Boing down in Texas in eighteen-ninety,” Billy began, “Davy, Davy Eisenhower . . .”
“A-B-C-D-E—” sang Jacob.
“Dere was a little ’elicopter red and blue,” Meli chirped, “flew along de airways—”
The rest came through unidentifiably.
“Ba-ba-ba,” said a faint voice. Gail had given up. I longed for ears in the back of my head because victory was mine and all I needed to do was reinforce it with a little friendly conversation.
“Yes, dear?” I asked her encouragingly.
“Ba-ba-ba,” was all I could make out.
“Yes, indeed. That Gail likes to go to Play place.”
“Ba-ba-ba!” A little irritable. She was trying to say something important. “Ba-ba-ba!”
I signaled for an emergency hover, turned around and presented my ear.
“Me eat de crus’ of de toas’,” Gail said. She beamed. I beamed.
WE MANAGED to reach Playplace without incident, except for a man who called me an obscenity. The children and I, however, called him a great, big alligator head and on the whole, I think, we won. After all, how can a man possibly be right when faced with a woman and eight tiny children?
I herded the children through the Germ Detection Booth and Gail was returned to me with an incipient streptococcus infection.
“Couldn’t you give her the shot here?” I asked. “I’ve just got her in a good mood, and if I have to turn around and take her back home . . . and besides, her mother works. There won’t be anyone there.”
“Verne, dear, we can’t risk giving the shot until the child is perfectly adjusted to Playplace. You see, she’d connect the pain of the shot with coming to school and then she might never adjust.” Mrs. Baden managed to give me her entire attention and hold a two-and-a-half-year-old child on one shoulder and greet each entering child and break up a fight between two ill-matched four-year-olds, all at the same time.
“Me stay at school,” Gail said resolutely.
There was a scream from the other side of the booth. That was Billy’s best friend. I waited for the other scream. That was Billy.
“Normal aggression,” Mi’s. Baden said with a smile.
I picked up Gail. Act first, talk later.
“Oh, there she is,” Mrs. Baden said, taking my elbow with what could only be a third hand.
Having heard we’d have a Hiserean child in Billy’s group, I managed not to look surprised.
“Mrs. Histara, this is Verne Barrat. Her Billy will be in Hi-nin’s group.”
I was immediately frozen with indecision. Should I shake hands? Merely smile? Nod? Her hands looked wavery and boneless. I might injure them inadvertently.
I settled on a really good smile, all the way back to my bridge. “I am so delighted to meet you,” I said. I felt as though the good will of the entire World Conference rested on my shoulders.
Her face lighted up with the most sincere look of pleasure I’ve ever seen. “I am glad to furnish you this delight,” she said, with a good deal of lisping over the dentals, because Hisereans have foreshortened teeth. She embraced me wholeheartedly and gave me a scaly kiss on the cheek.
My first thought was that I was a success and my second thought was, Oh, God, what’ll happen when Billy gets hold of little Hi-nin? Hisereans, as I understood it, simply didn’t have this “normal aggression.” Indeed, I sometimes have trouble believing it’s really normal.
“I was thinking,” Mrs. Baden said, putting down the two-and-a-half-year-old and plucking a venturesome little girl in Human Fly Shoes from the side of the building, “that you all might enjoy having Hi-nin in your car pool.”
“Oh, we’d love to,” I said eagerly. “We’ve got five mamas and eight children already, of course, but I’m sure everyone—”
“It would trouble you!” Mrs. His-tara exclaimed. Her eye stalks retracted and tears poured down her cheeks. “I do not want to be of difficulty,” she said.
SINCE she had no apparent handkerchief and wore some sort of permanent-looking native dress, I tore a square out of my paper morning dress for her.
“You are too good!” she sobbed, fresh tears pouring out.
“No, no. I already tore out two for the
children. I always get my skirts longer in cold weather because children are so careless about carrying—”
“Then we’ll consider the car pool settled?” Mrs. Baden asked, coming in tactfully.
“Naturally,” I said, mentally shredding my previous sentence. “We would feel so honored to have Hi-nin—”
“Do not think of putting yourself out. We do not have a helicopter, of course, but Hi-nin and I can so easily walk.”
I was rapidly becoming unable to think of anything at all because Gail was trying to use me for a merry-go-round and I kept switching her from hand to hand and I could hear her beginning to build up the ba-bas.
“My car pool,” I said, “would be terribly sad to think of Hi-nin walking.”
“You would?”
“Terribly”
“In such a case—if it will give you pleasure for me to accept?”
“It would,” I said fervently, holding Gail under one arm as she was beginning to kick.
And on the way home all the second thoughts began.
I would be glad to have Hi-nin in the car pool. Four of the other mamas were like me, amazed that anyone was willing to put up with her child all the way to and from Play place. I could count on them to cooperate. But Gail’s mama . . . I’d gone to Western State Preparation for Living with Regina Raymond Crowley.
I landed on the Crowley home and tooted for five minutes before I remembered that Regina was at work.
“Ma-ma!” Gail began.
“Wouldn’t you like to come to Verne’s house,” I asked, “and we can call up your mama?”
“No.” Well, I asked, didn’t I?
I was carrying Gail down the steps from my roof when I bumped unexpectedly into Clay.
“What is that!” he exclaimed, and Gail became again flying blonde hair and kicking feet.
“Regina’s child,” I said. “What are you doing home?”
“Accountant sent me back. Twenty-five and a half hours is the maximum this week. Good thing, too. I’ve got a headache.” He eyed Gail meaningfully. She was obviously not the sort of thing the doctor orders for a head-ache.
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